chapotraphouse

If your machete is less-lethal than a firearm it's either not sharp enough or you need to put in more time learning Escrima, Kali, or Tire Machet (apparently the Haitian machete fighting art that carried them to victory over the French). I notice that a lot of people don't respect swords and think they're harder to kill people with than guns. With a little technique and some upper body strength you should be able to open someone's skull like a coconut with a good machete.

idk if this is a joke or not but you should be able to remove a limb with a sharp machete, a moderate degree of strength and fitness, and good edge control. |

That said, carrying a machete around in the US at least is a bad idea. You'll just get shot by the cops. I'd strongly recommend carrying pepper spray. In almost all cases it's much better than a knife and it's usually better than a gun. You can keep fighting through a gun shot, but it's much more difficult to keep fighting when your eyes are forced closed and you can't breath due to the pepper spray. Aiming is less important, too, as you can just keep spraying until the attacker stops fighting. It also requires very little strength and coordination, and less practice than a gun and far less practice than a knife.

Knives should be a weapon of last resort. They're not good at killing people, and you have to come to hand to hand. It's entirely possible to stab the shit out of someone and they'll take a few minutes, or even a few hours, to fall down. During that time they can hurt or kill you.

Seriously, pepper spray and pepper gel are great. Strong recommend.

Also - Tramontina makes good quality machetes for very reasonable prices. If you want to spend a few more dollars Ontario Knife Company also makes very good, sturdy, hefty machetes. I find the handle a little less comfortable than the tramontina blades though.

Also also - If you do decide to carry a machete don't let that other hand be wasted. You can get very compact bucklers, basically a metal soup bowl with a handle, that can protect your off hand, deflect some blows, and makes getting punched in the jaw much less fun for the other guy. I have a very small buckler in my police riot kit to give me some kind of chance against an attacker with a knife. It's far from ideal, I'd rather have a kite shield, but it's small enough to fit in a backpack and no one knows what a buckler is so it's less likely to be ID'd as a weapon.